In 1986-1987 Husband and I and our son lived in far southern Indiana in a place nicknamed “The Athens of the Prairie”. We were only there for a year while Husband did his 12 month psychology internship, We were at 624 feet above sea level there.
I flew to Luverne with my son in the summer of 1987 to leave him with my mother while my dad and I drove to western ND to find a house to rent. Husband had just secured a full time job there. Luverne is 1463 feet above sea level. Winnipeg, where we moved from to Indiana is at 700 feet above sea level. Dickinson, ND, where we eventually moved, is 2460 feet above sea level. I remember being amazed at how different the sky looked in Indiana compared to Dickinson. It was as though I could pluck the clouds out of the sky in ND. We lived there from 1987 until 2025.
Husband and I are noticing differences between living in a tallgrass prairie in Luverne as opposed to a mixed grass prairie in Dickinson 1000 feet higher. The weather, humidity, and vegetation are much different. Jim Brandenburg, our local celebrity nature photographer dedicated about 1000 acres of tallgrass prairie just north of town as a nature preserve. It is named “Touch The Sky”. Look it up. It is wonderful. Much of the Twin Cities, by the way, seems to be in an oak savannah. Look that up.
Where are the highest and lowest places you went to. Ever read Giants In The Earth? Look up The Athens of The Prairie.
Trail Baboon 
Lowest, physically, is Death Valley.
I’ll need to check on the mountain road.
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I have been to the top of Mt. Whitney, in California. 14,495 feet up there. (I was 16 at the time). I didn’t make it to Furnace Creek, in Death valley, which is 135 miles away from there. I guess that the lowest I’ve ever been is standing in the waves is the Pacific Ocean.
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I’ve been lucky enough to not only go to Peru and also to Machu Picchu. The city that we stayed at closest close to Machu Picchu was Cusco, 11,152 above sea level. When you travel there as a tourist your doctor should give you altitude sickness medication with you, just in case. Fortunately, I did not experience any altitude sickness, thank goodness. One of the nights that we were in Cusco there was a huge thunderstorm, and I never looked up the physics of it, but I swear we were way closer to that lightning and thunder than I am here in Minneapolis. You could feel it rumble through you and you could hear the lightning crackle. It was terrifying yet fascinating at the same time.
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I am very susceptible to altitude sickness. My brain interprets the increase in heart rate as anxiety, and I feel as though I am having a panic attack in the mountains.
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Hmmm… I have also been to Cusco and Tulum.
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Wait, Wrong!!! Not Cusco.
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Hmmm… can I just delete the above comment? I haven’t been to Tulum either. I am thinking of an archeological site near Tulum, but I don’t remember the name of it. We climbed up very high, not as high as a mountain, but high. The people below us looked like ants. I wish my memory was better.
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I’ll bet nobody has nicknamed Athens the Columbus of Greece.
I’ve been at 10,000 feet or so in parts of Colorado and at the sea in various places so, I guess, sea level.
I read Giants in the Earth back when I was in junior high. I still have the book.
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There are still identified remnants of the oak savannah along the Mississippi in Minneapolis.
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There are 23 towns in the U.S. actually named Athens. Nashville is nicknamed The Athens of the South. After a while, “Athens” isn’t much of a distinction.
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Nashville did however kind of run with the Athens of the south theme. I’ve been to the replica Parthenon in Nashville. It’s full-size and it’s actually quite interesting.
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Faribault is known as the Athens of the West due to the private schools: St. Mary’s, St. James, and Shattuck, as well as the state-run School for the Deaf, and the School for the Blind (which has been closed for many years).
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Oh, I forgot the other question. I also read Giants in high school.
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Pikes Peak a few times for my high. Salton Sea for my low. Might have been a few feet lower somewhere near the Salton Sea, but it wouldn’t be any sort of landmark.
Never read the book. Columbus looks like a pleasant town to visit, if only to see the Chihuly glass sculptures. He’s cool! 🙂
Chris in Owatonna
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There were wonderful sculptures all over town and in the public library.
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Columbus is home to the Cummins Engine Company.
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I, too, have been to Machu Picchu but also Puno, Peru on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The elevation there is 14,556. I did use altitude sickness meds but still had tingly fingers when we arrived in Puno. 15 minutes of oxygen at the hotel helped immensely – was fine for the rest of our stay. The lowest altitude would probably be sea level.
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I started Giants in the Earth but I’ve not finished it yet.
I don’t know what the highest and lowest elevations are that I’ve visited. I would guess that Waikiki Beach in Hawaii is one of the lower elevations I’ve been to. I’ve also been to Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and the Tetons, so those are probably the highest.
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When I worked at the front desk of the Grand Rapids (MN not MI) Public Library from 1977-79 the former MN Gov, Karl Rolvaag came in an checked out Giants in the Earth, his father’s book. I waited on him. He was quite a taciturn man. Newly moved from Iowa, I did not know who he was, but he did not want to chat or engage at all.
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O.E. Rolvaag’s grand-daughter is in the poetry class I’m taking through Cannon Valley Elder Collegium. She lives in the same house he lived in. The St. Olaf Library is named after him.
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OT: I watched the weather late last night and I saw that it was in the upper 50s in Lucerne yesterday!
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Yep! We made a quick trip to Sioux Falls. Much warmer than our trip there two weeks ago.
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Luverne… my iPad autocorrected it to Lucerne.
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I knew what you meant!
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Read Giants in the Earth for some class in grad school. Fascinating if you can march all the way through it and not get depressed. Hamlin Garland wrote along similar lines for women isolated on the prairie and I read a rare book about women and children near Dickensen in first settlement. Highest point Taos, where I got altitude sickness, but I did not hydrate well. Maybe Lick observatory was higher, where I did hydrate well. Lowest, Salton Sea for me too.
Clyde
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
I cannot remember if I was in Death Valley as a child on a trip with my aunt and uncle, so I am unsure about that one. But I spent a wonderful week in Amsterdam which is at a low -6.6 feet under sea level. The highest point is in the Rockies Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.
On one European trip between Frankfurt and Venice, we flew over the Alps. As I looked down onto the peaks my fear of heights lurched into action. Wow is that a high elevation.
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I think Amsterdam is probly the lowest place I ever visited, too.
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Rolvaag makes reference to “The settlement at Rock River”, which I always took to be Luverne. I believe it was where the family’s young child wandered off into the tall grass and was never found.
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I had forgotten about Giants in the Earth. I read it a while ago, and that feeling of loneliness and depression really hit hard. Almost too easy to imagine.
(Do you ever wonder if you had previous lives?)
I don’t know what the highest point I’ve been is… airplanes?
I do enjoy the highest point on the farm and looking out over the valley.
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